ANOTHER YEAR IN BREXIT LIMBO?
PM ‘could make UK wait even longer’ to avoid no-deal cliff edge (but we’d have to keep paying EU billions)
THERESA May is prepared to delay Britain’s transition out of the EU by another year, Brussels said last night.
A senior EU diplomat said she told fellow leaders she was ‘ready to consider’ a plan to delay departure until the end of 2021 – five-and-a-half years after the vote to leave.
It would mean contributing another annual £10billion payment to the EU budget – on top of the £39billion ‘divorce bill’.
Full application of Brussels laws and free movement of people would continue.
Some ministers, including international trade secretary Liam Fox, believe the plan could buy more time to fix the Northern Ireland border issue, which is threatening to derail Brexit negotiations.
Mrs May yesterday ducked questions about the prospect of a longer transition as she arrived in Brussels for talks.
And Downing Street declined to say whether the UK could pursue the idea, saying the current proposal is for it to end in December 2020.
But the Prime Minister is said to have raised the proposal during her 20-minute presentation to fellow leaders last night.
The unnamed EU diplomat said: ‘There were no new proposals but she also mentioned the transition period. She said the UK would be ready to consider the extension of the transition period.’
Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, who was in the room for Mrs May’s presentation, said that the PM
signalled that she was ‘not against’ the idea but was ‘more or less neutral’ about it. The Eurosceptic Tory MEP David Campbell-Bannerman warned that extending the transition was a ‘potential trigger for a leadership election’.
He added: ‘I am totally opposed to any extension of the transition – it’s bad enough anyway. People want Brexit done.’
Former minister Nick Boles, who campaigned for Remain, said it would be ‘madness’ to extend the transition and continue making full contributions to the EU budget. Mr Boles said it would be ‘much better’ to seek temporary membership of the European Economic Area like Norway.
The PM used her presentation last night to urge EU leaders to show ‘courage, trust and leadership’ as Brexit talks headed for the wire.
Government sources said there was ‘no chance’ of EU leaders pressing ahead today with plans for a special Brexit summit next month following the collapse of talks at the weekend.
The Environment Secretary Michael Gove yesterday said a deal could be as late as December, while another Cabinet minister warned talks could drag on into January, just two months before the UK is due to leave.
EU leaders had hoped to clinch a deal at this week’s summit in Brussels. But this foundered on the issue of Northern Ireland at the weekend, after Mrs May warned she would not accept a ‘backstop’ plan that would see the province left on its own in the EU’s customs union.
The EU is considering an alternative British proposal that could see the whole UK remain in a ‘temporary customs arrangement’ after the tran- sition if the border issue is not resolved. But Cabinet ministers are demanding that the plan is ‘timelimited’, prompting Brussels to demand a ‘backstop to the backstop’, which would still involve Northern Ireland being carved off.
Mrs May last night said both sides would have to work together to ‘find a creative way out of this dilemma’.
She added: ‘We have shown we can do difficult deals together constructively and I remain confident of a good outcome. The last stages will need courage, trust and leadership on both sides.’
Earlier Mrs May appealed to Emmanuel Macron not to block a Brexit deal. The PM held an unscheduled meeting with the French president in Brussels just hours after his government announced it was stepping up preparations for a no deal Brexit, including plans to require British visitors to get visas.
Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitë warned that the Tory civil war on Europe was undermining Britain’s negotiating position.
Asked what was needed from the UK to achieve a breakthrough, she said: ‘To decide finally what they want and to rally behind the Prime Minister all together and not split, not battling, to have a joint opinion and joint stance.’
Mrs Grybauskaitë suggested the EU would be ‘ready to compromise if we know what the UK really wants’.
She added: ‘It is very difficult for the European side to negotiate with someone who does not have full support.’
Arriving at the summit last night, Mrs May said ‘very good progress’ had been made in recent weeks and insisted that ‘we can achieve a deal’.
But she ducked questions about whether the UK would pursue the idea of extending Britain’s transition out of the EU by another year, taking it to the end of 2021.
The proposal has been floated by the EU in recent days and was backed publicly by Ireland yesterday.
Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the idea would create ‘the space and time for the UK and the EU to be able to negotiate UK-wide customs arrangements’. But he warned the controversial backstop would still be needed in case the talks foundered.
Mr Tajanis said extending the transition would be a good choice, adding: ‘We need to work hard for an agreement. It is not easy.’
In a separate move, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed that MPs will not be able to table amendments to the final deal in the socalled ‘meaningful vote’ on the issue later this year.
Mr Raab said the restriction was needed to provide ‘as much certainty as possible to the country’.
Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Sir Keir Starmer, described the move as unacceptable.
‘Creative way out of a dilemma’